Table of Contents
Acknowledgements to the Third Edition xi
Preface to the Third Edition xiii
Part I Iran, Islam and Democracy: The Politics of Managing Change 1
Introduction 3
Structure of the book 5
Sources 6
1 Iran, Islam and Democracy: The Theoretical Contest 9
Iran, Islam and the 'secularisation thesis' 13
Civil society and democratic development 20
2 The Polities of Managing Change 27
A contested inheritance 27
The roots of democratic development 28
The constitutional period, 1906-1921 28
Reza Shah and the Pahlavi autocracy 32
The interregnum, 1941-1953 34
The restoration of autocracy, 1953-1979 38
3 Revolution, Republic and War 43
The dialectics of the 'collective will' 43
The limits of 'charisma' 45
Competing movements 47
Religious nationalism 48
An unorthodox legacy 49
The ideological dimensions of power 51
Causes of authoritarian domination 52
The war 52
4 Rafsanjani and the Ascendancy of the Mercantile Bourgeoisie 55
The roots and development of the 'mercantile bourgeois republic' 56
Developments in intellectual life 67
The intellectual revitalisation of the myth of political emancipation 73
The theoretical foundations of an Islamic democracy 76
Social responses to the bourgeois republic 83
5 The Failure of the Mercantile Bourgeois Republic and the Election of Khatami 86
Parties and personalities 87
The election campaign 98
The election of 2 Khordad 112
6 Contested Hegemonies and the Institutionalization of Power 114
The reformist worldview 116
Policies 118
Agents of change (1): students 120
Agents of change (2): the press 122
Agents of obstruction 123
A new beginning 126
The foreign policy of reintegration 134
7 The Dialectics of Reform 146
The politics of managing change 147
The parameters of 'civil society' 149
Constitutionalism and historical appropriation 154
Reform and reaction 155
The politics of economic reform 174
8 The Tide of Reform 182
The imprisonment of Kadivar 187
The student riots 193
The campaign for the Sixth Majlis and the arrest of Nuri 203
The dialectic, returns 214
High tide? 221
9 The Tide Stemmed 225
The attempted assassination of Hajjarian 226
The Berlin conference 229
The emasculation of the Majlis 230
The presidential elections of 2001 235
Reform in the shadow of 9/11 237
Iranian-US relations in the shadow of Afghanistan 239
The 'axis of evil' 243
Gridlock and the pursuit of constitutional reform 248
10 Full Circle? 253
Lost opportunities: Aghajari, Shahroudi, Taheri 253
America and the pollsters 261
Reform in the shadow of Iraq 263
Iran and the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty 267
The arrogance of power 270
Conclusion: From Reform to Neo-conservatism 277
Opportunities lost 280
The end of an era? 290
Appendix I A Crisis Every Nine Days: Khatami's First Term 295
Appendix II Ayatollah Taheri's Resignation Letter 308
Appendix III Letter from 127 Deputies to the Leader Ayatollah Khamenei 313
Part II Iran under Ahmadinejad: Populism and its Malcontents 321
The routmisation of charisma 326
The reinvention of charisma 331
Part III Preliminary Analysis of the Voting Figures in Iran's 2009 Presidential Election 345
Executive summary 347
Irregularities in voter turnout 348
Where did Ahmadinejad's new votes come from? 350
Do rural voters support Ahmadinejad? 353
Appendix 356
Part IV Crisis of Authority: Iran's 2009 Presidential Election 365
Introduction 369
Sources and methodology 374
The 2009 presidential election: the background 379
A brief history of elections in the Islamic Republic 384
The 2009 presidential election campaign 387
Countdown to victory 388
The primaries 394
Raising the stakes 397
A tale of two cities: Iran's opposing worldviews 398
Towards election day 402
Groundhog Day: from the sublime to the ridiculous 409
Fallout 415
Crisis of authority 416
The crisis escalates 425
The incoherence of dominance 429
'A global conspiracy' 431
A conservative crisis 433
Longer-term consequences and policy implications 437
Domestic questions 437
Assessing the integrity of the election 438
Post-election violence and the fundamentals of governance 438
Government options 440
Assessing government support 441
The spectre of 1978 442
The opposition and the Green Movement 443
The economy 444
The direction of travel 445
Iran and the West 447
The necessary tools 448
Engaging Iran and the Iranians 449
Mastering Iranian narratives 450
Iran and the United States 451
Iran and the United Kingdom 453
Iran and the EU 454
Iran, Russia and China 455
Geopolitical lessons 456
Conclusion 457
An inconvenient truth? 460
Part V Iran's eleventh Presidential Election: The Politics of Managing Change Revisited 465
Introduction 467
The burden of history 469
The ghost of Khatami 469
The spectre of Ahmadinejad 470
The campaign 470
Public scepticism 471
Hardline divisions 472
Building a drama out of a crisis 474
The election process 476
The diplomatic sheikh 477
Election day 482
A fractured elite 482
The result 484
A new dawn of prudence, moderation and hope? 487
Postscript: the politics of managing change 491
Part VI The United States, Iran, and the Politics of the JCPOA 497
Introduction 499
The arc of history 500
A nuclear narrative 507
An inconvenient truth? 511
Heroic flexibility 515
Manufacturing consent 519
The 'Guns of August' 524
The agreement 528
Looking forward 536
Conclusion 540
Part VII Epilogue: Britain, Iran, and the idea of the Reform 543
Glossary 567
Chronology 569
Bibliography 572
Index 615